Category Archives: UFC

Georges St-Pierre is fresh off a victory over Michael Bisping at UFC 217. And UFC President Dana White has already announced that Robert Whittaker will be GSP’s next opponent. But sportsbooks are offering lines as if St-Pierre were preparing to fight Conor McGregor.

This is the fantasy fight from a fan’s perspective because McGregor is coming off a boxing match against Floyd to Mayweather Jr. And St-Pierre is one of the most-famous fighters in mixed martial arts. They’re also both titleholders, with GSP holding the middleweight belt and McGregor holding the lightweight belt.

The betting line on St-Pierre vs. McGegor is more fantasy than reality right now. But major sportsbooks currently have GSP at -150 and McGregor at +120.

This sets up St-Pierre to be a favorite if the fight were to take place tomorrow. However, -150 doesn’t put St-Pierre as a massive favorite in the octagon. And it’s nothing like the long odds that McGregor was facing when he boxed Mayweather.

Both fighters are really talented. But if there’s a major reason why St-PIerre has an edge, it’s because the fight would take place at welterweight (170).

St-Pierre (185) and McGregor (155) sit at 30 points apart. McGregor would have to unnaturally gain 15 pounds, while St-Pierre would have the easier cutting process.

Chances of McGregor vs. St-Pierre Happening

Currently, the idea of Conor McGregor and Georges St-Pierre has mainly been something for the media to discuss. St-Pierre hadn’t fought in four years before beating former middleweight champion Michael Bisping. The Montreal native didn’t waste any time shaking off the ring rust, choking out Bisping in the second round.

Now he’ll fight interim middleweight champion Robert Whittaker some time next year. St-Pierre must win this fight in order to make a potential McGregor match more attractive. And he’s currently favored at sportsbooks (-160) against Whittaker (+130).

St-Pierre is contractually obligated to take on Whittaker next. But according to MMA Weekly, St-Pierre’s coach, Freddie Roach, wants his fighter to drop down in weight in the future. And this would make a McGregor/St-Pierre match far more plausible.

“I think I would like to go to the lower weight division, back to the weight that he’s more comfortable with and more used to,” said Roach. “But the thing is, that might not be available at this point. We do need to work that out with the promoter.”

Who will McGregor Fight Next?

With GSP already having his next fight booked, all eyes are on McGregor and who his next opponent will be. White is supposed to announce who the Irishman will face later this week.

“That’s all this week,” said White. “We’re working on that [UFC 218 main event]. I have to have it done by the end of the week.”

Yahoo Sports reports that money may be holding up McGregor’s return to the UFC.

“(The UFC has) got to entice me now because I came from a billion-dollar fight, so they’ve got to entice me with something,” McGregor said. “I want equity. I want ownership. I want to be true partners in this, similar to the way I was in the Floyd fight. I was a promoter and I was a fighter.”

“That must continue for me to continue. Otherwise, I’ve got many entities and many other interests that I can carry on.”

White also noted that the money McGregor earned in the Mayweather fight is making negotiations more difficult.

“That’s what he wanted to do (fight at UFC 219),” White explained. “But when you make friggin’ 80 million bucks, things change. You never know. I said that before the fight. You make that kind of money, it can change you.”

In summary, McGregor and St-Pierre will be doing their own things in the short-term future. And there’s quite a weight difference between them at the moment.

White has indicated that he’d like to put McGregor up against Tony Ferguson. Assuming he wins this match, then perhaps we can start talking more seriously about a GSP and McGregor fight.

The MGM took a $1 million wager on “Money” Mayweather at -550 odds from a VIP bettor. Jay Rood, MGM vice president of race and sports, said that the money was wired to the casino cage. The wager would earn the anonymous VIP bettor a $182,000 profit if they’re successful.

William Hill’s Nevada sportsbook also reported receiving a $1.2 million bet on Mayweather at -500 odds. This customer paid cash and stands to win $240,000 in profits.

Million Dollar Bets are Pushing Mayweather’s Odds Back Up

A flurry of betting activity on Conor McGregor briefly pulled Mayweather’s odds under -500 across the sports betting world.

We here at GTBets experienced the same thing because our early week odds were -455 on Mayweather and +335 on McGregor. Here’s how the odds sit going into the fight:

McGregor, Conor +400
Mayweather, Floyd -550

As you can see, we’ve added almost -100 to Money’s odds in the last few days. And some Vegas sportsbooks have put him at -600 lately.

Other Big Bets Reported on Mayweather

“The price is skyrocketing right now,” Rood told ESPN regarding the dramatic line shifts with Mayweather.

The two $1 million bets are the largest known wagers on the fight to this point. They highlight a sudden surge in betting activity surrounding Mayweather. Aside from the $1 million bets that William Hill and MGM took, they each accepted $300,000 wagers on Money.

The South Point sportsbook reported taking two bets worth “approximately” $200,000 on Mayweather within just 15 minutes of each other.

These came just after somebody wagered $50,000 on McGregor at +450 odds. This would earn the winner a $225,000 profit if McGregor can win.

McGregor still Leading the Action

It would seem that Mayweather is drawing the majority of the betting action when looking at recent wagers. But sportsbooks are still a long way from closing the gap between McGregor and Mayweather.

William Hill reports that even after the $1.2 million wager on Mayweather, they’d face a “seven-figured liability” if McGregor wins.

Westgate SuperBook told Purdum a different story, though. They said for every bet they received on Money, there were 12 placed on “The Notorious.” However, 76 percent of the money was on Mayweather winning. Going further, the average bet placed on McGregor is worth $212, while the average on Mayweather is $8,036.

Recording Breaking Betting Action

Everybody expected the Mayweather-McGregor fight to be big in terms of betting. But few expected the action to be this extreme.

The numbers have yet to come in from every sportsbook. But it’s estimated that Mayweather-McGregor will easily trump Money’s fight with Manny Pacquiao in May 2015. This match drew a record $60 million in betting action at land-based sportsbooks.

Why All of the Sudden Big Bets on Mayweather?

Floyd Mayweather opened this fight as a massive betting favorite. His GTBetst odds were as high as -800 at one point.

The upcoming Floyd Mayweather Conor McGregor fight has spawned countless bets across the globe. And Mayweather may soon place one of these wagers.

The 40-year-old fighter is thinking of making a $5 million bet on himself beating McGregor. This would be odd because those close to “Money” say that he doesn’t normally wager on his own fighting skills.

According to CBS Sports, Mayweather’s confidence is swelling heading into his August 26 fight with McGregor. He’s currently sitting at -455 odds at GTBets.eu, which would net him a $5.5 million winning bet ($500k profit).

The sheer amount of Mayweather’s bet will boggle the average person’s mind. However, this is a small amount for a guy who’s set to make over $100 million on the bout. And Money is no stranger to living up to his nickname with big sports bets.

Here are a few of his large wagers over the years:

$1.1 million on Oregon to beat Arizona State in 2012.

$200,000 on a 2015 playoff game between the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets.

On paper, Money doesn’t have much to fear in this match. He’s a perfect 49-0 in the ring and has beaten some of the best the boxing world has to offer. And he’ll be facing a mixed martial artist who’s never fought a boxing match before.

However, Mayweather has been the most humble of his career leading up to the fight. He claims that his age and lack of ring time since 2015 could hurt him.

Of course, this is all necessary in order to sell pay-per-views. McGregor doesn’t have the boxing skills of Mayweather and has long-shot odds of winning. But this hasn’t stopped people from betting on “The Notorious.” He has +355 odds at GTBets, which are far better than his true chances of stopping Money.

While Mayweather may not publicly state his confidence, he’s showing it in other ways. This includes a week-long party that he’s throwing himself to celebrate his own strip club. The week-long bash shows that Money isn’t exactly worried about his opponent.

The Circus has Quieted

Many will remember the 4-stop media tour that McGregor and Mayweather did to promote their fight. It was filled with insults, shenanigans, and plenty of four-letter words. But the most-recent media event inside Ka Theatre at the MGM Grand was anything but a circus.

As Yahoo Sports describes, it was “subdued, sterile and businesslike.” Contrast this to the previous press conferences across Europe and North America, where rowdy crowds watched the fighters rant and rave.

“I think after the reception these guys got, they don’t want fans near this place,” said UFC president Dana White, who’s referring to all of the the wild fans who watch Mayweather and McGregor’s press conferences.

“If I was them, and I got booed off every stage in the planet, I wouldn’t have any fans in here, either.”

The truth is that boxing press conferences are typically quiet in contrast to UFC media exchanges. But it’s still worth noting the difference between the previous and current Mayweather/McGregor press events.

Mayweather is Focused Heading into the Fight

McGregor has done everything to goad Mayweather into a war of words. He’s also tried to get in his head with bold predictions and taunts about Money’s age.

“I will break this old man,” the 29-year-old McGregor said.

“I don’t see him lasting two rounds. I feel I will have the decision to end it within one.”

He added, “I’m going to [expletive Mayweather] up, make no mistake.”

McGregor tried his best during the recent MGM press conference to get in Mayweather’s head. But these felt like empty words as Money barely reacted. He spent most of the time greeting MGM security guards and talking with his business partner Leonard Ellerbe.

Only members of The Money Team really responded. This included trainer and former Olympian Nate Jones, who yelled to McGregor, “Time to get your ass kicked.”

“One of his guys started saying something,” said McGregor. “And I was rising, but whatever. This was a lot more subdued.”

“Was the fans not allowed?” McGregor questioned following the event. “They don’t tell us nothing. I didn’t know what it was going to be. I just roll with it now. It was just media today? I’d like to have known that, but hey, whatever. I enjoyed it.”

Can McGregor Beat Mayweather?

As we covered before, McGregor doesn’t have a great chance to win this fight. But does he have any chance at all?

The Notorious earned his nickname by rattling opponents before UFC matches even began. He was fined $25,000 for a press conference shoving match, has stolen opponents’ title bets, and been ordered to do 25 hours of community service for throwing water bottles at Nate Diaz.

But his attempts to gain a mental edge on Mayweather don’t seem to be working at all.

“I’m going to go out there and do what I do best,” said a modest Mayweather. “Fight, be smart, take my time and be victorious.”

He also explained that McGregor’s taunts have had little effect on him.

“We do this every day at the Mayweather Boxing Club,” Money explained. “Every day we have younger fighters and older fighters with a lot of experience going at it, talking a lot of trash and having fighters being in each other’s ears.”

Mayweather also endured a few more barks from McGregor as they posed face to face for pictures.

But none of this has had an effect. And if Money isn’t thrown off mentally, then he’s very unlikely to lose in the ring.

His boxing skills are unparalleled, given that he’s a master at defense and counterpunching. Every mistake that McGregor makes – and there will be plenty – will be punished by Mayweather’s artful boxing skills.

Aside from some divine miracle, Mayweather should run his record to 50-0 with an easy victory.

Conor McGregor has gained steam at sportsbooks recently, with many bettors picking him to beat the undefeated Floyd Mayweather. But one person who’s not impressed with McGregor’s chances is former sparring partner Paulie Malignaggi.

The 2-time world champion boxer was invited to help McGregor train for his match with Mayweather. But Malignaggi left when he saw social media posts of their sparring sessions. According to the 36-year-old, the posts make it unfairly seem that McGregor was dominating the sparring action.

Now Malignaggi is pissed and bashing any chances that “The Notorious” has of winning this match. Let’s look at what Malignaggi said along with current odds on the fight.

Malignaggi Claims that McGregor is Becoming a Boxing Joke

Conor McGregor has done quite well for himself in the mixed martial arts world, winning the UFC Lightweight and Featherweight title belts. And boxing seems like a natural transition for him, given that MMA includes striking.

But Malignaggi thinks that McGregor’s boastful claims about his boxing abilities are turning him into a big joke.

“McGregor gets angry because boxing has not accepted him, but would an MMA fighter accept a boxer walking into their sport claiming that they are the best when he’s never done it in his life,” he told Sky Sports.

“That’s the situation with McGregor in boxing, he is being laughed at and it is only getting worse as each video of a public workout or him shadow boxing is released.”

The Agenda behind Skewing Sparring Footage

Malignaggi was part of The Notorious’ camp a few weeks ago. But this only lasted a short time as he grew tired of what he felt was a misleading social medial campaign.

“It’s been a wild ride the last couple of weeks and every time I think I’m no longer part of the storm, another photo or video comes out,” the retired boxer said.

“Part of me thinks that he has done this on purpose, maybe he wants to figure out a new opponent after the Mayweather fight if he wants to stay in this sport.”

Malignaggi also discussed his bizarre living situation during the sparring sessions.

“He maybe even planned to make me disgruntled before we even got in the ring, I had situations where I would show up to the gym just to be told I wasn’t allowed to train and I was put in a house that didn’t even have cable TV,” he explained.

“Was it all done to create trash talk, he has been dragging this all along for some reason.”

Malignaggi Dishes on what Really Happened in Sparring

If McGregor’s camp wanted a fair stage, they certainly weren’t offering it up to Malignaggi. He began sparring almost right off the plane after landing in LA. And he wasn’t in the greatest shape either.

That said, people could forgive Malignaggi for getting knocked down, which UFC President Dana White shared in a tweet. However, the boxer claims that the punches thrown prior to the knockdown were edited in.

“They want you to believe this was a knockdown and people can choose to be deceived but then they can only be mad at themselves when they realize the truth,” he said.

Malignaggi went on to explain that the punches right before he goes down were taken from previous rounds in the sparring exchange.

“Nothing landed in that exchange. You can think something landed, but it is clearly not the case, a passing graze is not enough to get a knockdown.

“The added footage of punches landed were edited in from the previous round and I always told people that he had a good couple of rounds before.”

McGregor may be Insecure about the Fight

The Notorious can be proud of his boxing skills if the video footage above is real. After all, he may have knocked down an experienced boxer who’s held title belts.

But Malignaggi doesn’t believe that McGregor should be bragging about any successes he had during the sparring session.

“I was tired and out of shape, the fact that he’s not ashamed that a guy came in off the couch and done twelve rounds shows you where his confidence levels are really at,” Malignaggi said.

“I had done the bare minimum beforehand just to show up in a little bit of shape as I assumed the training camp would be like mine or other boxers where each sparring partner does four to six rounds, not twelve.”

Malignaggi again went back to the claims that the video footage was edited, saying that McGregor didn’t pull off the near-impossible.

“Edit this video how you want, you’re trying too hard to prove what. I’ve sparred with hundreds of champions and very rarely does a knockdown happen, especially with the bigger gloves and headgear.”

He added, “[McGregor] is living in this alternate reality where he can punch and hurt people and sometimes I ask myself is he really that stupid, is it an act, why try to prove something that didn’t happen.

“Between me and him, we know the truth. Joe Cortez instantly said no knockdown and look at the people ringside, they would surely react differently at something so rare in a gym. Is McGregor that insecure?”

McGregor Mayweather Odds Have Shifted Recently

When the McGregor vs. Mayweather betting line first came out, Mayweather was a huge favorite. However, media sessions and McGregor’s brash talk have gained him favor with fans.

Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor have had an outstanding press tour that’s sure to bring them untold riches come August 26. But does all of this hype mean that the heavy underdog McGregor has a chance to win?

If we’re to ask McGregor himself, he not only think he has a chance to win. He honestly believes that he’ll knock out Mayweather when the two face off at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena.

“I fight in four-ounce gloves, why would I give a [expletive]?” McGregor said regarding the much-discussed gloves size.

“If we’re wearing eight-ounce gloves, I’m struggling to see how he lasts two rounds, and that’s the God’s honest truth. The only reason I maybe give him two rounds is because in this game, the referee stops me from pounding his head into the canvas, and he has 10 seconds to recover. That’s the only reason he might make it to a second round.”

The Irishman isn’t afraid to show his confidence, even when facing Mayweather, who’s 49-0 in professional boxing.

“He [Mayweather] keeps talking about, ‘Under the lights!’ ” McGregor said. “He keeps saying, ‘He looks good in the gym.’ I look good everywhere. I look good in the gym and I look good under the lights. In fact, I look better under the lights.”

McGregor added, “I am comfortable in this. This is my life. I’ve been under the spotlight for a long, long time, and in these mega-events also.”

Does McGregor Really Have a Chance?

Obviously Mayweather and McGregor’s back-and-forth is designed to sell pay-per-view packages for Showtime. And it’s certainly working because this fight is expected to break pay-per-view records.

But many wonder if there’s any substance behind the hype. After all, McGregor, a mixed martial artist, has never fought in an amateur or pro boxing match.

One aspect that’s being used to hype this event is Floyd’s age. He’s 40 years old and definitely out of his prime. Meanwhile, McGregor is 29 and holds both the UFC Lightweight and Featherweight belts.

Age notwithstanding, “Money” Mayweather holds the advantage in nearly every other category. He’s expected to win this bout and win big. Perhaps the only spot where McGregor may have an edge is his punching power. But that’s if he ever gets through Mayweather’s defense to use it.

Maybe where McGregor does have a chance, though, is his ability to rise to the occasion. “The Notorious” is perhaps the only fighter on the planet who’s as equipped to deal with the pressures of the ring as Money. Going further, he’s shown a penchant to elevate his MMA skills when needed.

Can McGregor Put Mayweather on the Canvas?

McGregor may be overstepping his bounds by predicting a knockout – even with his power. After all, Money has only been knocked down once, if you can even call it this.

Mayweather was winning handily in the twelfth round of a fight, when he touched the canvas with his glove after a punch. However, this was by design because he’d injured his hand and wanted to force more time off the clock.

If The Notorious can even knock Mayweather down – let alone register a knockout – it would be one of the greatest feats in boxing history. Mayweather is not easy to hit, and he’s shown a good chin the few times that he has been hit good.

Some see this as a safety risk because lighter gloves mean a higher potential for damage to an opponent’s face, as well as one’s own hands. However, the rule was added to make McGregor feel more comfortable because he’s used to fighting with 4-ounce gloves in the UFC.

McGregor said that he doesn’t care what size of gloves they have, which makes this feel like a ploy to convince fans that he has a better chance to win.

Both Fighters Set for a Huge Payday

There’s obviously motivation on both sides to sell pay-per-views and make it look like McGregor has a chance. Both fighters are expected to earn over $100 million from the bout.

This looks to be the biggest fight in history from a revenue perspective. So it only makes sense to hype McGregor up. And the 29-year-old has played his role well by trash-talking even better than Mayweather.

McGregor is Highly Motivated

Nobody truly knows what to expect when Conor steps in the ring on August 26. However, we can certainly expect him to put on a good show, no matter what.

“The other day, we were comparing pictures of when I was that age and he’s that age side-by-side and we’re like identical,” said a happy McGregor. “I’m like, yes, because he’s going to look exactly like me. He has my name and he’s carrying my, you know, it’s a legacy. I’m just in awe of my little man.”

It’s typical for new fathers to be happy about their new child. But McGregor says that this has taken his fighting skills to a new level too.

“It’s made me more focused, more disciplined because I can’t slack off, I can’t float around, I can’t do what I used to do,” McGregor explained. “I must train, recover, go home, look after my boy, rest and train again. It’s kept life more structured for me and it’s actually helped me as a fighter and as a man, with business and with training.

“Everything is more structured, as it should be, and that’s the key to getting to the high, high level. You must have structure. It’s been eye-opening and amazing and it’s only been three months. So many good times are ahead.”

Even with how good McGregor feels about his son being born and training, odds are that this fight won’t go his way. After all, the Irishman just doesn’t have the same level of experience as his opponent, nor the undefeated pedigree.

But one thing’s for sure, he’ll come ready for the challenge. McGregor has never wilted in a big-time UFC match. So don’t expect him to do anything less than give his all under the bright lights of T-Mobile Arena.